the seven accused sentenced to sentences ranging from six months to four years in prison

Only Marine Pequignot, the radicalized girlfriend of the attacker killed by the police, was found guilty of terrorist criminal association.

The Paris Special Assize Court delivered its verdict on Friday February 23 in the trial of the Trèbes and Carcassonne attacks, which left four dead in 2018. The sentences, significantly lower than those requested by the prosecution, range from six months to four years in prison.

In total,Seven people were in the dock, six men and one woman aged between 24 and 35. Four of the five defendants tried for terrorist conspiracy were acquitted of this offense.

Only Marine Pequignot, the radicalized girlfriend of the attacker killed by the police, was found guilty. The young woman was sentenced to five years of imprisonment, two years of which were suspended, and will not return to prison. The sentence is much lower than that requested by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) in its requisitions, 11 years.

“In the absence of criminal responsibility, they have a very important moral responsibility”

“The offense of terrorist criminal association still involves material acts in support of at least a terrorist project. If there is no material act, even in the case of complacency, we cannot cannot restrain the terrorist criminal association”declared President Laurent Raviot as a reminder at the end of his deliberations, well below what the Pnat had requested. “Many people in this case showed great complacency towards the terrorist”also said President Raviot. “And in the absence of criminal responsibility, they have a very important moral responsibility. I leave them to their conscience,” he concluded without giving more details on the court’s reasoning.

The magistrates notably decided that Samir Manaa, 28 years old, against whom the Pnat had requested the second heaviest sentence (10 years) for having accompanied Radouane Lakdim to buy the knife which fatally injured gendarme Arnaud Beltrame during the attack claimed by the Islamic State, had to be acquitted of terrorist criminal association. However, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for a related offense involving possession of weapons, unrelated to the attack.